Seven Days of Rain (3/7?) Part 1
Title: Seven Days of Rain
Author: mslavender
Characters: AU!France, AU!England, AU!Prussia, AU!Spain, AU!Hungary, AU!Feliciano
Pairing: FrUK and hinted PruAus
Rating: T
Summary: Seven days of rain, seven days of innocent romance.
"Oooh, Francis, did you get into a fight last night?! Why didn't you call me? I would've been awesomely beating their asses for you!"
"Shush, Gilbert! Francis, let me see!"
"Antonio, Gilbert, please," said the Frenchman, his hands held in front of his chest, signaling his friends to stop checking his bruised cheek. "I'm fine." And to prove this, he gave his best friends a small smile. (Although it probably looked a bit one-sided, since his cheek did still sting from Arthur's punch the day before.)
"Francis," moaned Antonio, his Spanish accent still as thick as ever. "What have you done this time?" Worried brunneous eyes glanced at Francis' black-and-blue cheek, his tan hand twitching to at least grab a hold of it for a bit and check if it was healing right.
"Nothing! I didn't do anything," said the Frenchman defensively, though he knew they had reason to worry. Sometimes Francis' advances could be very straightforward and end up leading him to trouble. And so he added, "Well, not this time, anyway," with a sheepish smile.
"Ha!" exclaimed the albino German named Gilbert, his red eyes twinkling mischievously. "You probably groped some cute guy's ass and didn't notice his girlfriend right around the corner, didn't you?"
"Please, Gilbert, don't think that Francis would do the same thing you did last summer," chuckled Antonio.
"Hey! I didn't really grope Roderich's ass." It was Gilbert's turn to be defensive, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I just... awesomely grazed it. That's all."
"Yeah right!" laughed the Spaniard. Then he noticed that Francis hadn't chimed in their whole conversation. Usually, he'd be making snide remarks about Gilbert's manhood size by now. "Hey, Francis, are you really all right?"
"Hm?" was all Francis could say before his attention snapped back to his friends. Antonio noticed him staring out the window seconds ago, and, unfortunately, so did Gilbert.
"What are y- or more accurately, who're you staring at?" asked Gilbert teasingly before leaning across Francis' table and pushing his face against the window.
"No one important," huffed Francis, but giving way to Gilbert's curious intrusion on his desk anyway. "Just... someone I recently met."
"Hmm," Gilbert smirked. "No one important, eh?"
Curiosity getting the better of Antonio, he walked behind Francis (he at least had decency unlike some German friend he knew) and took a slight peek. On a small wooden bench underneath the school's largest oak tree sat a blonde-haired Englishman, silently reading a book with his headphones on.
The sight looked calming; the wind ruffled through his unkempt hair, slightly tousling his blonde locks, curling around his pale face; a small pink tint veiled his round cheekbones as his body struggled to warm itself from the cold weather. His thin pale pink lips were shut tight, but nonetheless they looked smooth and warm and soft to touch. And finally, those eyes. When Arthur had looked up at the gray skies, everyone caught a glimpse of captivating emeralds that danced under the hazy afternoon light.
"Tell us about him," smirked Gilbert. "There must be more to this story if your cheek is all bruised up."
"Yeah, exactly what did you do to get that?" inquired Antonio, stealing a nearby chair and sitting on it backwards so its back was to his chest and his legs were straddled apart.
"Well," Francis started with a smile. He loved to tell stories, especially ones involving cute Englishmen and their irritating temperaments. "Where do I start?"
And so Francis described the past events detail per detail: about how he had met a strange man named Arthur on a rainy day, all alone and standing underneath the cold rain without an umbrella; About how he had seen the bushiest eyebrows on a man but also the most gorgeous green eyes, glaring at him like there was no tomorrow; About how annoyingly rude the Englishman was yet adorable in his lost wet state; How much Arthur had blushed when he fell on Francis the day that he gave him that punch on the face. (Francis swore that if he had a picture, he'd keep it forever. He remembers thinking how incredibly charming the Englishman can be, punches and what-not.) And most especially the fact that Arthur lived right next to him ("The irony of this world," he said. He knew Arthur did not like him at all, and to this, he only chuckled.)
When the Frenchman was finished, his friends stayed quiet, amused looks plastered on their faces.
"What's the matter?" Francis asked cluelessly.
"Oh, nothing... maybe the fact that you've got this huge grin on your face," teased Gilbert.
"Like a lady in love," added Antonio. He made a show of puckering his lips and batting his eyelashes at the Frenchman.
They both fell into a fit of laughter before Francis punched them both on the arm and, half-laughing and half-grinning, said, "Nonsense! It would take a lot more than that to have me seriously fall in love for anyone." With one more glance outside the window, however, Francis added with a thoughtful smile, "He's just an interesting Anglais, that's all."
(Francis saw Arthur gather his things from the wooden bench, standing up and turning to leave, when all of a sudden, he stopped and looked back up at the shadowy gray sky. Two soulful green eyes began to flutter, as if searching for something that he couldn't see, and when the first two droplets of rain landed on his face, he snapped out of his trance and shook his head. He began to walk away, leaving Francis to ponder once again.)
----------------------------------------------------
"Arthur, where is that article you wrote for the Gardening Club?"
Arthur's eye twitched the moment he opened the club's classroom door. "Hello to you, too, Elizaveta."
"Hey, are you going to give it to me or what?" demanded the brown-haired Hungarian, her dark green eyes bore into the Englishman's head, somewhat making her eyebags sag even more. She looked more stressed as she turned back to her laptop, her fingers flying on the keyboard with ease and experience. After all, she was the school paper's chief editor.
"Ah, let me get it," Arthur sounded a bit more grumpy than he intended to as he hurriedly took off his jacket and dropped his backpack on a table. However, once he shoved his hand into his bag to look for his article folder, Elizaveta stopped typing and turned once again to Arthur.
"Look, I'm sorry, Arthur," she sighed heavily. "It's really been a rough week."
"I can imagine." Arthur gave Elizaveta a small sincere smile. He did feel bad for her; she had been working hard to get the paper done for two weeks now (with everyone's help, of course), and she hardly gave herself the time to rest. This woman was a hard working perfectionist, and he respected her for that.
"Here," he finally got his article folder out of his bag, flipping through the papers until he pulled one of them out and gave it to Elizaveta's outreached hand.
"Thanks, Arthur," smiled the Hungarian, turning her attention back to her work once again. "The others should be here soon," she added, her eyes glancing at her watch. "We can't afford to skip this meeting, lunch or no lunch. Our advisor has something to discuss with us."
"Really?" grunted Arthur as he set up his own laptop. "What for?"
"Something about the art club," Elizaveta shifted in her seat, but her eyes still trained themselves on the screen and her fingers glued to the keyboard. "They're coming to help us with the pictures and layout."
"Oh, well, that's something new," snorted Arthur as he grabbed a chair and sat down. He then immediately positioned his hands neatly on his keyboard.
(The Englishman opposed the idea of having more people to work with. Arthur liked to work alone or with people who were in the same or higher level as him, like Elizaveta. Being a near-perfectionist when it came to his work, he felt that having more people would only bring him down. Even in other aspects of his life, he thought, he loved to do things alone. Yes, Arthur always thought of himself a loner at heart.)
"So, when are they arriving?" asked Arthur, although he didn't really care anymore. What mattered the moment he sat down and put his hands on his keyboard were the words that were already flowing out from his fingers.
(Elizaveta was not the only one experienced when it came to the art of writing. Arthur himself was a natural, his hands easily gliding on the keyboard as if it were delicate piano keys, and his words intelligent and rich, as if straight from a novel. "You'd make Shakespeare jealous," Elizaveta told him when he first joined the writing club. That was where Elizaveta had discovered him and asked him to join them for the school paper. "No one here writes the way you do," she said.)
Elizaveta took this moment to stretch, the melodious tapping of Arthur's keyboard soothed her. She never did tell Arthur, but she was right to have recruited him, and she was thankful that he was there. Glancing at her watch once again, she finally replied, "Right about now, actually."
----------------------------------------------------
"What is it, Feliciano?" inquired the Frenchman, glancing at the short Italian boy walking alongside him. His conversation with Antonio and Gilbert was cut short when Feliciano entered the room and called for him, and he would like to know why.
"We're needed at the writer's club room before lunch ends," smiled the Italian, hazel brown eyes shining with excitement. A strand of his brown hair bounced as he cheerfully clapped his hands together. "We need to talk about the upcoming school paper!"
"School paper?" Francis raised an eyebrow at the mention of this. "Isn't there a club or a department for that sort of thing?"
"Well, yes, but I hear we'll be working together with them for this issue." Feliciano stopped in front of a door and turned to Francis. "That's why we're having a meeting with them right now." He then grasped the doorknob and beckoned for the Frenchman to join him.
"Oh, great," Francis groaned. "More work."
----------------------------------------------------
"It's about time," grumbled Elizaveta. "Hold on, let me call the adviser-"
"No, no," Feliciano chirped. "Let me! He is my grandfather after all."
"Oh, well then, let me go with you. I have to show him something," Elizaveta smiled and stood up from her seat. She then looked at Arthur's direction; he had his earphones on and some classical music playing. The Hungarian smiled knowingly. When Arthur had his earphones on, it meant that he was focusing and he didn't want to be disturbed. It also seemed, however, that he was completely clueless to his surroundings, his fingers still tapping away at his keyboard. And so with a slight nudge on Arthur's shoulder, she said, "Hey, I'm heading out to call the adviser. When the others come, tell them to wait, okay, Arthur?"
No response; just even more fast-paced typing. Elizaveta sighed. "Oh well, let's just go-"
"Oh! The Anglais is here as well?"
The typing stopped. To this, Elizaveta looked at the Englishman and then to the Frenchman who spoke. Who was he to have captured Arthur's attention so easily?
Slowly, the Englishman turned, his eyebrows furrowed in horror. "You... frog!"
"Oui," The Frenchman grinned. "Rosbif."
--------------------------
Author's Note: Splitting this chapter into two (?) parts because it's looking to be a long one. And hey, I'm saving you guys from the wait! XD
Author: mslavender
Characters: AU!France, AU!England, AU!Prussia, AU!Spain, AU!Hungary, AU!Feliciano
Pairing: FrUK and hinted PruAus
Rating: T
Summary: Seven days of rain, seven days of innocent romance.
"Oooh, Francis, did you get into a fight last night?! Why didn't you call me? I would've been awesomely beating their asses for you!"
"Shush, Gilbert! Francis, let me see!"
"Antonio, Gilbert, please," said the Frenchman, his hands held in front of his chest, signaling his friends to stop checking his bruised cheek. "I'm fine." And to prove this, he gave his best friends a small smile. (Although it probably looked a bit one-sided, since his cheek did still sting from Arthur's punch the day before.)
"Francis," moaned Antonio, his Spanish accent still as thick as ever. "What have you done this time?" Worried brunneous eyes glanced at Francis' black-and-blue cheek, his tan hand twitching to at least grab a hold of it for a bit and check if it was healing right.
"Nothing! I didn't do anything," said the Frenchman defensively, though he knew they had reason to worry. Sometimes Francis' advances could be very straightforward and end up leading him to trouble. And so he added, "Well, not this time, anyway," with a sheepish smile.
"Ha!" exclaimed the albino German named Gilbert, his red eyes twinkling mischievously. "You probably groped some cute guy's ass and didn't notice his girlfriend right around the corner, didn't you?"
"Please, Gilbert, don't think that Francis would do the same thing you did last summer," chuckled Antonio.
"Hey! I didn't really grope Roderich's ass." It was Gilbert's turn to be defensive, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I just... awesomely grazed it. That's all."
"Yeah right!" laughed the Spaniard. Then he noticed that Francis hadn't chimed in their whole conversation. Usually, he'd be making snide remarks about Gilbert's manhood size by now. "Hey, Francis, are you really all right?"
"Hm?" was all Francis could say before his attention snapped back to his friends. Antonio noticed him staring out the window seconds ago, and, unfortunately, so did Gilbert.
"What are y- or more accurately, who're you staring at?" asked Gilbert teasingly before leaning across Francis' table and pushing his face against the window.
"No one important," huffed Francis, but giving way to Gilbert's curious intrusion on his desk anyway. "Just... someone I recently met."
"Hmm," Gilbert smirked. "No one important, eh?"
Curiosity getting the better of Antonio, he walked behind Francis (he at least had decency unlike some German friend he knew) and took a slight peek. On a small wooden bench underneath the school's largest oak tree sat a blonde-haired Englishman, silently reading a book with his headphones on.
The sight looked calming; the wind ruffled through his unkempt hair, slightly tousling his blonde locks, curling around his pale face; a small pink tint veiled his round cheekbones as his body struggled to warm itself from the cold weather. His thin pale pink lips were shut tight, but nonetheless they looked smooth and warm and soft to touch. And finally, those eyes. When Arthur had looked up at the gray skies, everyone caught a glimpse of captivating emeralds that danced under the hazy afternoon light.
"Tell us about him," smirked Gilbert. "There must be more to this story if your cheek is all bruised up."
"Yeah, exactly what did you do to get that?" inquired Antonio, stealing a nearby chair and sitting on it backwards so its back was to his chest and his legs were straddled apart.
"Well," Francis started with a smile. He loved to tell stories, especially ones involving cute Englishmen and their irritating temperaments. "Where do I start?"
And so Francis described the past events detail per detail: about how he had met a strange man named Arthur on a rainy day, all alone and standing underneath the cold rain without an umbrella; About how he had seen the bushiest eyebrows on a man but also the most gorgeous green eyes, glaring at him like there was no tomorrow; About how annoyingly rude the Englishman was yet adorable in his lost wet state; How much Arthur had blushed when he fell on Francis the day that he gave him that punch on the face. (Francis swore that if he had a picture, he'd keep it forever. He remembers thinking how incredibly charming the Englishman can be, punches and what-not.) And most especially the fact that Arthur lived right next to him ("The irony of this world," he said. He knew Arthur did not like him at all, and to this, he only chuckled.)
When the Frenchman was finished, his friends stayed quiet, amused looks plastered on their faces.
"What's the matter?" Francis asked cluelessly.
"Oh, nothing... maybe the fact that you've got this huge grin on your face," teased Gilbert.
"Like a lady in love," added Antonio. He made a show of puckering his lips and batting his eyelashes at the Frenchman.
They both fell into a fit of laughter before Francis punched them both on the arm and, half-laughing and half-grinning, said, "Nonsense! It would take a lot more than that to have me seriously fall in love for anyone." With one more glance outside the window, however, Francis added with a thoughtful smile, "He's just an interesting Anglais, that's all."
(Francis saw Arthur gather his things from the wooden bench, standing up and turning to leave, when all of a sudden, he stopped and looked back up at the shadowy gray sky. Two soulful green eyes began to flutter, as if searching for something that he couldn't see, and when the first two droplets of rain landed on his face, he snapped out of his trance and shook his head. He began to walk away, leaving Francis to ponder once again.)
----------------------------------------------------
"Arthur, where is that article you wrote for the Gardening Club?"
Arthur's eye twitched the moment he opened the club's classroom door. "Hello to you, too, Elizaveta."
"Hey, are you going to give it to me or what?" demanded the brown-haired Hungarian, her dark green eyes bore into the Englishman's head, somewhat making her eyebags sag even more. She looked more stressed as she turned back to her laptop, her fingers flying on the keyboard with ease and experience. After all, she was the school paper's chief editor.
"Ah, let me get it," Arthur sounded a bit more grumpy than he intended to as he hurriedly took off his jacket and dropped his backpack on a table. However, once he shoved his hand into his bag to look for his article folder, Elizaveta stopped typing and turned once again to Arthur.
"Look, I'm sorry, Arthur," she sighed heavily. "It's really been a rough week."
"I can imagine." Arthur gave Elizaveta a small sincere smile. He did feel bad for her; she had been working hard to get the paper done for two weeks now (with everyone's help, of course), and she hardly gave herself the time to rest. This woman was a hard working perfectionist, and he respected her for that.
"Here," he finally got his article folder out of his bag, flipping through the papers until he pulled one of them out and gave it to Elizaveta's outreached hand.
"Thanks, Arthur," smiled the Hungarian, turning her attention back to her work once again. "The others should be here soon," she added, her eyes glancing at her watch. "We can't afford to skip this meeting, lunch or no lunch. Our advisor has something to discuss with us."
"Really?" grunted Arthur as he set up his own laptop. "What for?"
"Something about the art club," Elizaveta shifted in her seat, but her eyes still trained themselves on the screen and her fingers glued to the keyboard. "They're coming to help us with the pictures and layout."
"Oh, well, that's something new," snorted Arthur as he grabbed a chair and sat down. He then immediately positioned his hands neatly on his keyboard.
(The Englishman opposed the idea of having more people to work with. Arthur liked to work alone or with people who were in the same or higher level as him, like Elizaveta. Being a near-perfectionist when it came to his work, he felt that having more people would only bring him down. Even in other aspects of his life, he thought, he loved to do things alone. Yes, Arthur always thought of himself a loner at heart.)
"So, when are they arriving?" asked Arthur, although he didn't really care anymore. What mattered the moment he sat down and put his hands on his keyboard were the words that were already flowing out from his fingers.
(Elizaveta was not the only one experienced when it came to the art of writing. Arthur himself was a natural, his hands easily gliding on the keyboard as if it were delicate piano keys, and his words intelligent and rich, as if straight from a novel. "You'd make Shakespeare jealous," Elizaveta told him when he first joined the writing club. That was where Elizaveta had discovered him and asked him to join them for the school paper. "No one here writes the way you do," she said.)
Elizaveta took this moment to stretch, the melodious tapping of Arthur's keyboard soothed her. She never did tell Arthur, but she was right to have recruited him, and she was thankful that he was there. Glancing at her watch once again, she finally replied, "Right about now, actually."
----------------------------------------------------
"What is it, Feliciano?" inquired the Frenchman, glancing at the short Italian boy walking alongside him. His conversation with Antonio and Gilbert was cut short when Feliciano entered the room and called for him, and he would like to know why.
"We're needed at the writer's club room before lunch ends," smiled the Italian, hazel brown eyes shining with excitement. A strand of his brown hair bounced as he cheerfully clapped his hands together. "We need to talk about the upcoming school paper!"
"School paper?" Francis raised an eyebrow at the mention of this. "Isn't there a club or a department for that sort of thing?"
"Well, yes, but I hear we'll be working together with them for this issue." Feliciano stopped in front of a door and turned to Francis. "That's why we're having a meeting with them right now." He then grasped the doorknob and beckoned for the Frenchman to join him.
"Oh, great," Francis groaned. "More work."
----------------------------------------------------
"It's about time," grumbled Elizaveta. "Hold on, let me call the adviser-"
"No, no," Feliciano chirped. "Let me! He is my grandfather after all."
"Oh, well then, let me go with you. I have to show him something," Elizaveta smiled and stood up from her seat. She then looked at Arthur's direction; he had his earphones on and some classical music playing. The Hungarian smiled knowingly. When Arthur had his earphones on, it meant that he was focusing and he didn't want to be disturbed. It also seemed, however, that he was completely clueless to his surroundings, his fingers still tapping away at his keyboard. And so with a slight nudge on Arthur's shoulder, she said, "Hey, I'm heading out to call the adviser. When the others come, tell them to wait, okay, Arthur?"
No response; just even more fast-paced typing. Elizaveta sighed. "Oh well, let's just go-"
"Oh! The Anglais is here as well?"
The typing stopped. To this, Elizaveta looked at the Englishman and then to the Frenchman who spoke. Who was he to have captured Arthur's attention so easily?
Slowly, the Englishman turned, his eyebrows furrowed in horror. "You... frog!"
"Oui," The Frenchman grinned. "Rosbif."
--------------------------
Author's Note: Splitting this chapter into two (?) parts because it's looking to be a long one. And hey, I'm saving you guys from the wait! XD